By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
President Trump continues to distort the truth about Robert Mueller’s investigation, falsely claiming he was fully exonerated from a report that was drawn up by “highly conflicted” prosecutors.
The Associated Press examined recent claims by Trump to determine whether he was being truthful.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted, The Mueller Report … was written as nastily as possible by 13 (18) Angry Democrats who were true Trump Haters, including highly conflicted Bob Mueller himself.”
Even Trump’s own aides admit this isn’t true. The president’s assertions that Mueller is “highly conflicted” stem from Mueller interviewing for the FBI director position before he was appointed special counsel and Mueller’s dispute over membership fees at a Trump golf course.
According to the special counsel’s report, Trump’s closest aides said the president’s complaints don’t represent “true conflicts.”
Further, Mueller is a lifelong Republican appointed by a member of Trump’s administration, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
On Saturday, Trump also tweeted that “The Mueller Report should not have been authorized in the first place.”
That claim rests on the false assertion that the investigation was prompted by an anti-Trump dossier financed by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Truth is, as the Mueller report indicates, the FBI’s investigation “began months before it received the dossier,” the AP wrote.
“Within a week of the (WikiLeaks) release, a foreign government informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos,” the report stated. “On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.”
On Thursday, Trump and several of his aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, claimed the report exonerated the president of any wrongdoing.
The report clearly stated the opposite.
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller wrote. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”
Further, the report cites 10 examples of possible obstruction by the president.
“The evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns,” the report states.
